


New York City, 1919

by dieofthatroar



Series: stuck inside, here's a ficlet [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Gen, Spanish flu, Virus, yeah we're going back to last century's epidemic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dieofthatroar/pseuds/dieofthatroar
Summary: Crowley wakes up from a nap and finds the population diminished
Series: stuck inside, here's a ficlet [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665151
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	New York City, 1919

New York City, 1919

Crowley had purchased a small studio apartment on the lower east side of Manhattan because it was close to a Jewish deli he liked, and it always smelled a little of smoke, but mostly because it was mostly to sleep in. The guy he bought it from tried to hide the fact that it was once a tenement building and hadn’t upgraded any of the cellar rooms, but Crowley didn’t mind. All he needed was a nice, dark place to shut his eyes and, once in a while, eat a pastrami sandwich.

He slept a lot those years.

Until, of course, a certain angel came pounding at his door.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said. “Crowley, open up.”

Crowley cracked his door open and saw an Aziraphale who hadn’t changed much since he’d last seen him. Same exact jacket, in fact, from maybe 20 years earlier. He said so. Aziraphale scoffed and pushed his way inside.

“Tell me you’re not behind this.”

Crowley frowned. He didn’t remember anything particularly nefarious he’d done in the past year or two. Maybe a decade back he had input on something that snowballed out of his control, but really, that was just business as usual.

“Hello to you, too,” he said. “Behind what?” 

Aziraphale sighed. “The flu,” he said gesturing at the wall as if there was a window to the outside world when there was decidedly not. “The Spanish Flu, or whatever they’re calling it now.”

Crowley blinked. Aziraphale dropped his arm.

“You have no idea.”

“The humans always get sick,” he said. “I don’t see death on his… what is he riding now? Carriage?”

“I think he has a car now.”

“Oh,” Crowley said, nodding. Maybe he should get himself one of those.

Aziraphale was digging through the pile of old clothes Crowley had shed since his last foray outside, curling his lip and throwing them away like they were diseased. “It’s bad out there,” he said. “Pestilence may not be out there now, but it’s only a matter of time.”

Crowley folded his arms over his chest. “It was always a matter of time,” he said. “Weren’t we due for a good round of disease?”

Aziraphale sniffed one of Crowley’s coats, shrugged, then threw it at the demon. “Due? Really?”

“Yes, really. There’s always the calm before the storm, or the divine rage of the big boss, you know after a… oh.”

“Oh?”

“How’d that, er, war thing turn out?” Crowley said. He avoided Aziraphale’s eyes.

“The… war… thing,” Aziraphale said slowly.

“I remember people were talking. It was a great big one.” He waved his hands to emphasize this. See? He knew what he was talking about.

“Get your shoes, we’re going out,” Aziraphale said and walked out of Crowley’s apartment.

They ended up in a hospital ward filled by rows and rows of men in bunks. The air smelled stale like Crowley could imagine the illness in the very breath of the sick. They were quieter than he would have imagined. So many men, and only the sound of gasping breaths.

“Why are they all so young?” Crowley asked Aziraphale.

“They’re the ones that came back from that great big war,” Aziraphale said. He gave Crowley a look that he couldn't quite read.

Crowley thought about that, and about what he was doing in parts of France and Germany before his last nap. He thought about his and Aziraphale’s ongoing pact, and how the good and the bad would eventually cancel out. He could do a bad thing, every now and then, to prevent a worse thing from happening. The demons would praise him and God would shrug and move on. He'd seduce a butterfly to flutter her wings and something down the road would…

The man at his feet coughed and turned over. Crowley had started to find it hard to breathe.

“I—er,” Crowley started, then stared at his feet.

“What did you do?”

Aziraphale didn’t look angry like he should. He just looked sad.

“I thought it would help,” Crowley said. “The—the war, you know? I thought a little cold would make them all go home. Not worth it, fighting with a stuffy nose. I didn’t think these humans were so fragile! It can’t possibly be my fault, all this.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said. His hand fluttered like he was going to reach out and take his hand—no, nothing like that. He probably had an itch or something. In the end, his hand stilled on the pocket of his coat. 

“It isn’t the end of the world, is it?” Crowley asked.

“No,” Aziraphale said. “No, I don’t suppose it is, yet.”

“Let’s avoid that, shall we?”

“Let’s.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm dieofthatroar on tumblr, come say hi, or give me some more quarantine prompts ;)


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